ARTS WATCH. Dance review.

Spontaneity A Key Ingredient Of Bob Eisen's `New Quartet'

The Chance Dance Fest is Links Hall's annual August "whatever" forum, offering rotating experimental artists an opportunity to take some risks and live spontaneously.

Each performance held on Wednesdays throughout August, features Bob Eisen Dance and a different guest artist or artists. This week Robin Lakes/Rough Dance joins the bill, and on Aug. 28 the line-up includes new work by Ginger Farley.

Eisen's "New Quartet," viewed Aug. 14, is ingeniously designed to show off Links Hall's tiny, atelier headquarters. It also features no small amount of his wit and penchant for mischief. Two of the dancers come out into the performing area in the beginning and position themselves as if they're about to start. Before they do, Eisen and another walk through the area, as if they're patrons who have somehow lost their way.

The suggestion of almost accidental art is something of an ongoing theme for this choreography, and he explores it with flights of sweeping, lyrical dancing and playful theatrical experiments. At one point, at the end of an intense opening session, he and the dancers exit by the rear door as if they're finished. The only evidence that they're not is the cacaphony of sounds that erupt on the other side of the rear stage door once they close it.

Screeches of celebration and later protests suggest the performers are trapped--possibly in torture--behind the door. They return for more performing, at one point via a fire escape outside a side window.

Typically, Eisen's employment of such stage tricks avoids subordinating the dance to the flummery. There are haunting moments of stillness alternating with animated flourishes, with the dancers at times literally bouncing off the walls. And always "Quartet" is enchantingly site specific, down to his striking final moment, wherein his three ensemble members--Amy Alt, Felicia Ballos and Krenly Suzman--perform for him, his back against the rear wall, until at last they turn to look at him for more inspiration, only to be met by a sudden blackout.

Tom Melvin's simple but inspired set involves paint cans and ladders glued to the ceiling upside down--an engaging bit of reality that looks like some sort of optical illusion. Also performing were New York-based Barbara Mahler in a modest abstract solo, "All Manner of Falling/Pins in My Fingers," and a beguiling San Francisco-based performance artist, Susan Copich, whose winning smile couldn't mask a serious exploration of inner emptiness and urban despair called "Thirst."

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For more information on the series at Links Hall, 3435 N. Sheffield Ave., phone 312-281-0824.